Shawn Mendes Details His '10 Minutes of Awkward Silence' with the Queen: 'It Was Super Weird'

Shawn Mendes knows how to be smooth — until it comes to the British royal family.

Despite being invited to perform at Queen Elizabeth’s 92nd birthday concert in April, the 19-year-old didn’t have the best of luck when it came to actually meeting some of the evening’s most distinguished guests.

During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Mendes said that while he was standing backstage, waiting to perform, he ended up awkwardly standing next to the Queen in silence for 10 minutes.

While the “In My Blood” singer — whose mother is English — kept “looking at her,” he explained that he didn’t break the ice because “you’re not allowed to speak to her unless she speaks to you first, so it was this 10 minutes of awkward silence.”

“It was super weird,” he continued, adding that the Queen didn’t even look at him once.

Unfortunately for Mendes, his moment of silence with the Queen wasn’t his only awkward encounter of the evening.

Asked about whether he managed to meet Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who were both in attendance at London’s Royal Albert Hall that evening, the singer said that although he came really close to saying hello, he ended up chickening out as soon as he entered the room they were in.

“This is gonna be my biggest regret forever: I was walking down the halls and I see them in one room and they’re just talking,” he said, adding that at the time, he felt like approaching the couple — who will walk down the aisle on Saturday — wouldn’t be that difficult, because both he and Markle have spent plenty of time in Canada.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

John Stillwell - WPA Pool/Getty Images

“I walked in with this confidence and the second they kind of felt me coming, I just turned around and my body went numb and I was like, ‘Can’t do it, can’t do it,” he continued, explaining that he immediately walked out of the room.

“I’ve never been so starstruck like that,” he added as the audience laughed. “I walked in the room and I didn’t stop, it was just one flow of motion.”

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